you were a shock in the dark
by of starlight
Summary: "It would be a lot easier to avoid making you angry," he pauses, leaning close so he's speaking right into her ear, "If you didn't go getting jealous every time I tried to teach someone I'm clearly uninterested in." —-reyben.


**entitled;** you were a shock in the dark  
 **summary;** _"It would be a lot easier to avoid making you angry," he pauses, leaning close so he's speaking right into her ear, "If you didn't go getting jealous every time I tried to teach someone I'm clearly uninterested in."_  
 **rating;** t  
 **disclaimer;** i fucking wish i owned all my children.  
 **word count;** 2,633  
 **dedication;** arbutus-blossoms on tumblr. i only thought this up because of the art work posted by them, so yeah. this one's for you.  
 **notes;** this is a jedi masters au. the key bit being AU here, alright? this is an established universe, in my head, so things have happened to get them here that you have yet to see, you kinda just have to go off on ben having originally resisted snoke's manipulation toward the dark side for this fic.

* * *

 **you were a shock in the dark**

 **.**

Fingers curled around her wrist, guiding the girl's poor stance into a better one and Rey felt her stomach knot into a painful lump. It was ridiculous – she wasn't Ben's only partner, and he had padawans to teach. And considering the amount of time he spent with her, there were bound to be some times when he would need to take time off to train with others.

It didn't stop the horrible feeling in her gut at the sight of the pretty blonde being circled by his arms as he tried to get her into a proper fighting stance.

"Now close your eyes," he tells her, and Rey's fingers curl into her arms, nails close to breaking skin, "And let yourself feel it."

She snorts before she can stop herself, and almost immediately hates herself for it. He glances her way, a dark brow lifted and she turns her gaze elsewhere.

"I don't think I'm doing it right," Marlee's voice comes, and as hard as Rey tries not to judge, because she doesn't really know her, she doesn't miss the batting of eyelashes as she looks up at Ben.

"No kidding." She finds herself murmuring, and a few of the others snicker.

"Rey," Ben's eyes are on her again and she mentally curses, "Perhaps we need to have a talk?"

There's a chorus of ' _ooohs_ ' and ' _aaaahs_ ' from the padawans, and she didn't even bother with an answer. Instead she simply turns on her heel and storms off.

"Rey!"

She wasn't sure if he'd follow or not – his temper would flare if she didn't listen, she knew it, but it was rare he ever let the others see that side of him. Only she ever got to see him in ways the others could not. And perhaps that should have been enough to calm the irrational jealousy that had surged to the surface within her, but it wasn't.

It seemed to work as an instigator instead.

 **.**

Rey wasn't sure how long she'd been walking, but she was deep in a bamboo forest when the rain started coming down.

"Just _great_."

She plops herself down on a large rock, and sighs.

She's not used to this – these feelings. For so long Ben was very important to her, but she'd constantly seen him as what he was – a teacher, a friend, her family. Nothing more.

Until now.

Closing her eyes, she adjusts herself atop the rock, crossing her legs and begins to meditate. She was never good at sitting still, always wanting to do more, learn more as opposed to sitting down thinking of nothing. At that moment, however, she felt it might be of some use to her.

"You're going to end up sick."

She jumps, eyes wide, but his arm is around her waist before she can fall off of the stone she was sitting on. Still, she quickly scrambles away, getting to her feet and turning to face him properly in the rain.

"I'll survive." She mutters, not properly meeting his gaze, even as he comes to stand beside her, shielding her from the rain with his cloak.

"Care to explain the attitude today, because I'm not understanding it." He tells her in response, and she fights the urge to run away again.

"Then you're a bigger idiot than I thought you were." she sneers, folding her arms across her chest.

"Rey."

She hates when he says her name like that, with that scolding tone like she should know better by now, because she _should_.

"Oh, come _on_ ," she blurts out, finally turning to glare at him, "You can't seriously tell me you didn't notice that she was doing _all that_ on purpose."

His brows raise in response, and there's a twitch at the corner of his lips, but his expression reveals little, "Doing what, exactly?"

She grows more irritated, "Playing stupid! Throwing herself at you, Ben!"

He stands firmer then, gaze meeting hers upon hearing his name fall from her lips, "So?"

She's about ready to explode. " _So_? What do you mean, _**so**_?"

"I mean, s _o what_? It doesn't affect me in any way, why does it matter?"

She can't recall when he moved closer, but he's there, less than a foot away from her and her heart is pounding rapidly in her chest. She doesn't know how to respond to that without making a fool out of herself. Though, she's not sure she hasn't already done so.

"Why did you run off like that, Rey?"

She bites her lower lip, heat rushing to her face as she glances at anywhere but him, "You... You know why, Solo –"

"Back to Solo, are we?" he mutters, bending over the slightest bit, so his lips are annoyingly close to the shell of her ear. "Rey, look at me."

She hesitates, but does as he says, and hates herself for giving into him. "Ben."

He manages to keep his expression as neutral as possible, like he's searching for something, and she knows that he is. She can feel it and she hates it, because under any other circumstances, she can read him like an open book while keeping him at bay. But she's annoyed, upset, blinded by an overwhelming amount of emotions, so she does the first thing she can think of.

She hits him.

The look of surprise on his face is priceless, and the only thing that keeps her from laughing at him is the jealousy still sitting just under the surface.

"Quit being a dick," She breathes out, watching him as he massages the now sore spot on his jawline, "You know I hate it when you try and Force probe."

"I wouldn't have to if you just answered the damn question!"

And there it was, that temper of his that flared so easily. It was such a relief to see that instead of the facade of the calm, collected Jedi Master all the girls swooned over.

That man wasn't Ben, not her Ben.

"It's an invasion of privacy, you little shit!"

"Look who's talking, you pint-sized brat."

They were both fuming then, it was amazing the rain wasn't simply evaporating around them. Still, it was falling, the downpour coming stronger the longer they stood there until finally, he sighed.

"Will you just tell me what I did to piss you off?"

"You didn't do a damn thing." Which, is not technically a lie. He didn't do anything out of the ordinary, anything offensive. Things were just different now. She had to accept the fact that no matter how she saw things, he wasn't actually _her_ Ben.

"Then why did you run off like that?"

"Because –" She lets herself meet his gaze, wondering if telling him the truth was worth the teasing she would get as a result of her honesty. "Because things are different, Ben."

"What do you mean? How the hell are things different?" There was genuine confusion showing on his features and she has to wonder if she was really that good at keeping her feelings in check, or he was just that oblivious.

"Just forget it, Ben." She kind of deflates then, sagging in her own body and suddenly shivering as she realizes that they're both very much standing in the middle of a quickly growing storm. "Can we get out of this rain?"

She can see it in his eyes, that he wants to argue. His temper wanting to get the better of him but he quickly wraps his cloak around her and starts leading her through the bamboo trees until they reach a small clearing surrounding the opening of a small cave. "We can wait here until the storm dies down.

"I'm going to freeze to death before the storm dies down," She argues, peeling off his cloak once they're inside, "You should have just led us back home."

She's surprised to find that it's not just an empty cave. It's been... kept. There are torches that he lights up to illuminate the small space, and she realizes that there are a couple of seats, woven from the bamboo. There are a few other things, but she's paying more attention to the fact that he's walking around without a bit of surprise.

"This is yours?"

"It's my place of meditation."

"But it's –"

"A cave?" He turns to her, brushing wet hair away from her face and peeling off as much of her wet clothes as is deemed proper. "Cold, dark, empty. Yeah."

"I was going to say _suffocating_." She admits, realizing that it's not much better. When he reaches the last layer of her wet clothes and she feels his fingers on her cold skin, she stops him, fingers curling around his wrist automatically. "That's as undressed as you're gonna get me."

He smirks then, but pulls his hands back without argument and starts pulling off his own wet garments. Once he's left with just some pants, he puts both their clothes as close to the flames as possible without burning them, and she hopes that they get dry enough by the time the storm calms.

"It's calming, believe it or not." He tells her, walking over to a small pit in the middle of the cave where he lights another fire, this one a great deal bigger than that of the torches to keep them warm. "I never told you about the dark in me," He glances up at her, but she keeps her expression carefully stoic, "About when I nearly gave into it. Something as simple as meditation in the darkness, it helps, and has continued to help."

"Is that the only thing that helps?" She asks him, taking a seat in front of the fire and watching him carefully as she does so. "Keep the darkness at bay, I mean?"

"That, and other things."

"Like what?"

A soft chuckle falls from his lips and he sits across from her, the fire dancing between the two of them. "Like training with an annoying, pint-sized Jedi Master who can kick my ass."

She has to bite back a smile, "It was a serious question, you ass."

"And it was a serious answer." He tells her with a laugh, narrowly avoiding a pebble she chucks at him. "It helps. Training, with you. I mean, training in general is pretty standard. Keeps my mind off of it, but when it's really bad, it's just you. You're my friend, my partner. You know me. It's easier to forget about any darkness when I'm with you."

"Oh." She breathes out, blinking a few times as she tries to come up with a halfway decent response to that. All it really does is make her feel that much more stupid for getting so upset over what happened earlier.

"Eloquent."

"Haha." She mutters, quickly coming back to herself and shaking her head. "Just... I'm here. I mean, whenever you feel like it's getting to be too much, you can talk to me. I'll be here."

"I know you will."

"Good."

The silence that follows is one of the most serene she's ever experienced, and she's surprised by it. Small spaces, the darkness, they've rarely given her comfort. He knows this more than anyone, her own fears about possibly being seduced by the darkness. It strikes her then just how similar they are in certain ways, and she wonders if it's really that big a surprise to anyone that she came to develop any serious feelings for him that surpassed those of mere friendship.

"The rain's letting up."

She tears her gaze away from the fire as he pushes himself to his feet and walks over to the cave's entrance.

"Do you want to head out now, or wait a little longer?"

Her gaze lingers on the falling rain just past him for a moment longer before she looks up at him again. "We can wait a bit longer. Won't kill us."

"It just might kill _me_ ," he tells her with a grin, "You're lethal when you're angry."

She quickly finds another pebble and chucks it at him, "Then don't make me angry."

He quickly moves out of the stone's way and makes his way over to her, sitting right beside her and throwing an arm over her shoulders. "It would be a lot easier to avoid making you angry," he pauses, leaning close so he's speaking right into her ear, "If you didn't go getting jealous every time I tried to teach someone I'm clearly uninterested in."

Heat rushes to her face so quickly, she struggles a bit before she can get the words out, "Wh-what!?" She squirms in his hold, trying her hardest to shove him away but he's snaked his other arm around her waist and is pulling her closer, laughing into the crook of her neck. "Solo, you son of a bitch, let me go!"

"Not a chance." He murmurs into her neck, and she shivers. He's holding her closer to him and her struggling only brings them to the ground, where she finds herself simultaneously struggling against him and curling into him because of the warmth his body is providing. "Not until you understand that you don't have to be jealous of anyone, ever."

"Ha!" She barks out, finally putting a pause on her attempts to squirm out of his hold, "This coming from the guy who turns into a complete dick whenever Finn is around."

"That's different."

"How is that different?"

"He loved you."

"Oh, come on, all the girls love you."

"Not the way he loved you." He's whispering the words into the base of her neck, and she can feel them on her skin more than she can actually hear them. "No one's ever loved me like that. Something so pure and real has never been directed at me."

The silence is suffocating, and she breaks it with a simple sigh as she wraps her around his torso. "You really are that big an idiot."

"Like I haven't heard that before." His words are muffled, but the way his hold on her tightens lets her know that he's actually nervous about what she's going to say next. "But perhaps clarify on what it is I'm being an idiot about this time?"

"I know for a fact that at least one person loves you like that." She tells him, turning so her lips press against his cheek.

"Oh?"

"Yeah, and she can totally kick your ass."

She feels his laughter before she can hear it, "I bet she can."

"She can probably kick mine, too, but let's be honest, it's your mother, so I'd let her."

His head shoots back so fast, and she can't help laughing at the look on his face when she sees it. Almost immediately he's scowling at her and she pulls him back, laughter still falling from her lips as she presses a soft kiss to his lips, murmuring softly against them, "See, two people already who love you like that, four if we throw in your dad and Chewbacca."

"You really need to not talk about my parents and the wookiee while you kiss me," he tells her, though she swears she can almost hear the pounding of his heart in his chest, "But, I won't deny it is satisfying knowing you're including yourself in that group."

"Told you you were a big idiot." She tells him, though the words are light and hold no venom in them whatsoever, so he doesn't argue, simply nods and recaptures her lips with his own.

She lets him, and allows herself the simple pleasure for that moment, at the very least. Later she can scold herself for giving in to the attachment. Later she can worry about all the consequences that would come.

In that moment, he was Ben. _Her_ Ben.

 **end.**


End file.
